A profound exploration of how unconscious beliefs and inherited stories shape our lives, and how discovering the deeper fears beneath life's challenges can lead to personal transformation and freedom to rewrite our own narratives.
Influential Woman · Womens Empowerment
Lisa V Stannard
Womens Empowerment, Threads 4 Inspiration
Coconut Creek, FL 33073
1Article published
Her Story
About Lisa
For more than twenty years, Lisa Stannard helped build a successful online business while also working in real estate, following earlier careers on Wall Street and in healthcare. From the outside, her life looked successful. Then everything changed.
The unexpected loss of the career she had helped build became more than a professional setback—it became the catalyst for a journey inward. The childhood stutter she believed she had left behind suddenly returned, forcing her to ask a question that would ultimately change the direction of her life:
Why now?
That question led Lisa on a seven-year journey through therapy, hypnotherapy, neuroscience, leadership development, communication, and personal growth. Along the way, she realized the job loss hadn't created her fear—it had awakened beliefs she had been carrying since childhood about safety, identity, and self-worth.
Today, Lisa helps women, especially those navigating major life transitions in midlife, understand that many of the stories shaping their lives were written long before they had the power to question them. Through speaking, journal poetry, and honest conversations, she encourages women to become curious about the beliefs they've inherited, calm their nervous systems, trust themselves again, and write a new chapter on their own terms.
Lisa continues to develop her craft through the John Maxwell Speaker Program, Mic Drop, Toastmasters, and leadership communities while volunteering each year with Live2Lead. She is currently developing her signature keynote and TEDx talk, both centered on a simple but transformative idea: understanding ourselves—not fixing ourselves—is often where real freedom begins.
Her message is simple: The better you know yourself, the better you'll navigate a life that never stops changing.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lisa
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to staying curious and being willing to evolve.
I've never believed that growth comes from having all the answers.
It comes from asking better questions, trying new things, and being willing to change your mind when you learn something new.
Over the years I've explored different careers, studied leadership and communication, filled journals with questions instead of conclusions, and stepped into opportunities that once intimidated me—from public speaking to publishing my writing.
I don't think success is about getting everything right. It's about continuing to learn, even when life doesn't go according to plan. Every new experience has taught me something about myself, and that has been far more valuable than any title or achievement.
Curiosity has opened more doors in my life than confidence ever has.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was to work hard, stay focused, and don't start trouble.
For years, I lived by those rules. They helped me build a successful career, earn trust, and create opportunities I was proud of.
But life eventually taught me that working hard isn't enough.
No one told me to know myself. To question the beliefs I'd inherited. To understand that a job can end, a company can change, or life can take an unexpected turn—and if your identity is built entirely around your work, those moments can shake you to your core.
Today, the advice I'd pass on is this: work hard, absolutely. But don't build your entire identity around what you do. Build it around who you are.
Careers change. Titles change. The better you know yourself, the better you'll navigate a life that never stops changing.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values that guide both my work and my personal life are authenticity, curiosity, compassion, growth, and freedom.
Authenticity means allowing myself, and encouraging others—to stop living by expectations that no longer fit. I believe we're at our best when we're honest about who we are instead of trying to become who we think we're supposed to be.
Curiosity has become one of my greatest teachers. Instead of asking, "What's wrong with me?" I've learned to ask, "Why do I think this way?" or "What can I learn from this experience?" That simple shift has transformed both my life and the way I connect with others.
Compassion is equally important. We all carry stories, experiences, and beliefs that shape how we see ourselves and the world. I believe real growth begins when we approach ourselves—and others—with understanding instead of judgment.
Above all, I value personal freedom: the freedom to question inherited beliefs, rewrite our own stories, and choose a life that reflects who we truly are. That's the message I hope people take away from my speaking and writing.
Her Content Hub
Articles by Lisa
The Stories That Have Been Writing Your Life.
Uncover the hidden beliefs shaping your life and discover the power to rewrite your story.
What If the Story Isn't the Story?
Raise your hand if you've ever had something happen that changed you.
- A job loss.
- A betrayal.
- A relationship that ended.
- A door that closed.
- A promotion you didn't get.
- A business that didn't work out.
Something that made you question who you were.
Even though you're reading this instead of sitting in an audience, I bet you pictured yourself raising your hand.
Because if you've lived long enough, you may have experienced one of those moments.
Now imagine I asked you to keep your hand raised if someone responded with one of these well-meaning phrases:
"You'll be fine."
"Stay positive."
"Everything happens for a reason."
"Just move on."
"You have so much to offer."
Most people mean well. I know they do. But what if your mind, body, and soul had other plans?
The Story I Thought I Was Living
For years, I believed losing my job changed my life. I was wrong. Losing my job didn't create my fear. It revealed a story that had been quietly shaping my life for decades.
After spending more than twenty-five years helping build a business, my career ended unexpectedly.
I thought I was grieving the loss of a job. Then something happened that made even less sense. My childhood stutter returned. I hadn't struggled with it for decades. Why now?
I assumed it was stress. But deep down, I knew there had to be something more. That single question—Why now?—sent me on a journey I never expected to take.
The Fear Under the Fear
Over the next several years, I searched for answers through therapy, journaling, leadership development, Toastmasters, neuroscience, and eventually RTT hypnotherapy.
Those RTT sessions changed everything. Instead of trying to fix the woman I had become, I was guided back to the little girl I had once been.
What I discovered surprised me. The job loss wasn't what I feared. Not really. The fear underneath was much older.
As a little girl, I learned that staying quiet often felt safer than speaking up. The stutter wasn't the problem. It was the alarm.
I watched women I loved lose the lives they had built. I didn't have the words to describe it then, but my young mind quietly came to a conclusion:
Nothing is permanent. Safety can disappear. Everything you build can be taken away.
Children don't analyze those moments. They absorb them. And without realizing it, I carried that belief into adulthood.
My career became more than a career. It became my safety. My identity. The evidence that the world was finally predictable.
When I lost my job, it wasn't simply employment that disappeared. It was my identity. It was the illusion that I was safe.
The Stories We Never Knew We Were Living
That experience changed the way I see people.
Today, I believe many of us are living lives shaped by stories we never consciously chose.
- Stories about success.
- Stories about love.
- Stories about money.
- Stories about failure.
- Stories about aging.
- Stories about what women should be.
- Stories about whether we're enough.
Most of these stories were written long before we had the awareness to question them. We inherit them from:
- Our families.
- Our experiences.
- Our culture.
- Our environment.
By the time we're old enough to question those stories, they've already begun shaping our decisions.
Then one day, life happens.
- A divorce.
- A diagnosis.
- A betrayal.
- A layoff.
- A child leaves home.
- Retirement.
And suddenly, the story we've been living no longer fits the life we're trying to live.
Becoming Curious
For years, I asked the wrong question: Why did this happen to me?
Today, I ask a different one: What is this experience trying to show me?
That single shift changed my life.
Curiosity opens doors that self-criticism keeps locked. Instead of judging ourselves, we can begin asking:
Where did this belief come from?
Is it actually true?
Does it belong to me... or did I inherit it?
Sometimes the first answer isn't the real answer. That's why I often ask myself one more question:
What's the fear under the fear?
Because fear has a remarkable way of protecting stories we didn't even know we were carrying.
The Rescue
One of the most powerful moments of my journey wasn't finding an answer. It was finding myself.
The little girl who had spent years trying to hide wasn't broken. She wasn't weak. She wasn't wrong. She had simply done what children do. She made sense of the world with the understanding she had at the time.
For years, I thought I needed someone else to rescue me. Closure. Validation. An explanation. An apology.
Instead, I realized something I never expected: I had gone back to rescue her.
Not by changing the past, but by giving her what she had needed all along: safety, compassion, understanding, and a promise that she would never have to carry those fears alone again.
The woman I became finally helped her feel safe.
Writing the Next Chapter
People often ask me what changed. The answer isn't that I became fearless. It's that I became aware.
Aware of the stories I had been living.
Aware of the beliefs I had mistaken for truth.
Aware that I had the ability to question them.
And ultimately... to rewrite them.
I've come to believe that's where freedom begins. Not when life goes according to plan. Not when someone finally gives us closure.
But the moment we realize...
The story isn't the story.
Because the stories that have been writing your life... don't have to write your next chapter.
You do.
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